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All we hear about Africa in the West is Darfur, Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia, as if that is all there is.

The U.S. has been a great friend all these years, but as soon as Africa found itself starting to move up, the U.S. is really disengaging.

Africa has been troubled for a long time - well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born.

We've had to pull out of so many countries in Northern Africa.

I think that Africa has made quite rapid progress and a lot of the conflicts that we saw on the continent have abated.

There is a greater fatigue concerning the African problem today than five or 10 years ago. The situation now in Africa is worse today than it was 10 years ago.

I'm extremely optimistic about rapid transformation and change of things in Africa in general.

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world's last 'New Frontier:' a kind of 'it-continent.'

Too many African countries have already hit rock-bottom - ungoverned, poverty-stricken, and lagging further and further behind the rest of the world each day; there is nowhere further to go down.

I don't think anyone who has been to Africa comes away untouched by the place. You see a lot of beauty and optimism, but you also come away with an awareness of the huge gulf between what most of us have and what most of them have to make do with. Then, every now and then, a famine or a war makes everything a hundred times worse.